


La génie de l'amour

by El Staplador (elstaplador)



Category: The Count of Monte Cristo - Dumas
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/F, Teacher-Student
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2009-05-28
Updated: 2010-07-02
Packaged: 2017-10-05 01:48:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elstaplador/pseuds/El%20Staplador
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Paris was full of girls who fell in love with their music teachers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Paris was full of girls who fell in love with their music teachers. Louise had done it herself, ten years ago. Armand was an engaging young man with curly brown hair, soulful eyes, and a knack of making even the cheeriest pieces from Anna Magdalena Bach's notebook sound heart-rending. He was a baritone, and, while he was only meant to be teaching her to play the pianoforte, often they had sung together. _Là ci darem la mano_. There we will take each other's hand. He had taken both hers, had gently bent the fingers into the correct curve, had laid his own over hers. He would take her left hand while she perfected a trill in the treble with her right, would touch it to his lips, his cheek, his -

_Vorrei, ma non vorrei_. I would, and yet I would not. Louise was no fool, even then. Even now, she blushed to remember.

_Là mi dirai di si_. There you will say to me, 'yes'. And of course she had. At the age of fifteen, Louise had fallen in love with her tutor as easily as a raindrop falls from a leaf.

Now, at twenty-three, she was falling in love with her pupil.

Eugénie Danglars was seventeen, tall, handsome, and accustomed to getting her own way. She had an aptitude for music, and a voice that might, with work, become as powerful as it was beautiful. Louise doubted, however, that she had the discipline to turn talent into skill. Why should she? Eugénie was not destined to be a singer. She was a baron's daughter; she would become the cultured wife of a rich husband, and she would sing in the parlour after dinner, and entertain her husband's friends.

It was, Louise considered, a criminal waste. Still, if Eugénie would not work, there would be nothing to waste, and all that would be lost would be a moderate talent. And in the mean time there was bed and board for Louise at Baron Danglars' town house, and if she was beginning to take a more than professional interest in Eugénie's elegant white throat, who was to know?

'Imagine,' she said, 'that you are a puppet, that there is a string coming from the top of your head, and that instead of standing on the floor you are suspended from the ceiling. See how straight your neck becomes when you do that.' But Eugénie was still standing badly, and Louise had to get up from the piano stool and move her shoulders back, and tip her chin upwards a little. She felt Eugénie's pulse under her fingers and tried to ignore it. Eugénie complied with her repositioning, confidently meek.

'There,' Louise said. 'Now, try to create a column of air running all the way up your body, from the base of your lungs to the roof of your mouth.' She moved behind Eugénie and laid her hands gently over the base of her ribs. 'Use your diaphragm.' Eugénie breathed in, and Louise's hands moved with her. 'Good. And out.'

Louise let her hands fall, and moved back to the pianoforte. She struck a chord. 'Scales, please, Eugénie.'

And if she moved perhaps a little more quickly than the situation called for, Eugénie did not appear to notice.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was, perhaps, the wrong song for Eugénie.

  
It was, perhaps, the wrong song for Eugénie. _Caro mio ben, credimi almen, senza di te languisce il cor_. Louise tried to imagine Eugénie imploring the beloved to believe her, admitting to so much as a sense of inconvenience caused by a lover's absence. She laughed and shook her head. It was absurd.

'What's the matter?' Eugénie demanded. 'Was that wrong?'

Louise shook her head. 'No. Sorry. I was – distracted for a moment. I apologise. Would you mind starting again?'

'Very well,' Eugénie said, with a graciousness that she had almost grown into. Her eighteenth birthday had been the day before, and Louise had been half surprised that she turned up punctually to practise. There was more to life than singing, after all, particularly for Eugénie, who had half of Paris at her feet.

She sang it again, and this time Louise reached the second section without mishap. _Cessa, crudel, tanto rigor_. That was more like Eugénie: an order. Cease this torture, cruel one! If only she could sing it with a little feeling... 'This is a sad song,' Louise said when Eugénie had finished. 'An angry song, a painful song. You sound far too happy.'

'I am happy,' Eugénie said, as if that were all that mattered. 'Music makes me happy, and how can I be otherwise than what I am?'

'What does the music tell you, Eugénie?' Louise asked patiently, but Eugénie was not in the mood for scholarly analysis.

'This is the only time in the day that I feel happy, Louise. When I am here, alone with you and the music, is the only time that I feel free, the only time that I can be myself. Why should I force my joy into grief to please Giordano, who died a hundred years ago, and wouldn't care if he hadn't?'

'Because it will make you a better musician,' Louise said, and knew that Eugénie understood.


	3. Chapter 3

'Sing with me,' Eugénie demanded – no, not demanded – _ordered_. A demand could be refused. An order could be delayed, or countermanded by a higher authority – although, so far as Eugénie was concerned, there was no higher authority, only inconveniences – but never refused.

Louise unlocked the pianoforte, and tilted her head to one side. 'Sing with you?'

Eugénie stuck her chin out. 'I'm bored with arias. It's always one after another: first I sing it, and it doesn't please you, and you sing it to show me how it ought to be done, and then I sing it again. It wearies me, Louise. I want a duet.'

Louise had learned long ago that Eugénie should not have everything her own way. 'First, your scales. Then, the Gluck. Then, if that's satisfactory, I shall see what duets we have.'

Eugénie submitted with a remarkably good grace, but said, 'I have brought some duets. Maman bought me the latest work by Mendelssohn.'

Louise smiled to herself. 'Very well,' she said. 'When you have finished the hard work. Come, let us begin with a few arpeggios.'

She found herself reflecting, as Eugénie swam up and down the arpeggios, that she had misjudged her. The beautiful Mlle Danglars was, in fact, applying herself to the art with commendable effort, and with considerable success. She was well beyond parlour standard, now; were it not for the fact that such a course was unthinkable Louise would have urged her to turn professional. She would do well on the concert stage, better, perhaps, at the opera; she was on the verge of discovering a dark, passionate edge to her voice, which with training might fit her for the dramatic roles.

Louise made her sing the Gluck four times, trying to get her to convey the agony of the grieving Orfeo.

'It was right the first time,' Eugénie protested.

'It was not; the last note was flat, and you rushed the middle section.'

'The second time, then.'

Louise twisted to look at her. 'Yes, but it might have been sung by an automaton! Put some feeling into it!' she begged. 'Think, Eugénie, think! This man has been to hell and back to find his love, and has lost her again, and you sing it as if you were reading a laundry list!'

Eugénie began to say something, but stopped herself. 'Let us try it again.'

'Once more, then,' Louise agreed, wondering whether she might not have said too much. She turned back to the pianoforte and began the introduction once more.

When Eugénie sang she was astounded by the difference; it was as if a mighty river of feeling had broken through a dam and watered a barren landscape. Louise found the notes melting into a blur before her eyes, and it was only by dint of fixing her attention upon the technical aspects of the accompaniment that she could continue playing to the end. If all the praise she gave was a simple, 'Very good,' it was because her heart was too full to allow her to say more.

'Now,' she said, when at last she could trust herself to speak, 'the Mendelssohn?'

Eugénie passed the music to her silently; she did not seem entirely unmoved herself. Louise opened it at the first number and scanned the music. 'I shall play it over. I am unable to sight-read, sing and play all at once.'

'Oh, Louise,' Eugénie teased, 'even you?'

But there was a brittle quality to her voice, and Louise looked at her keenly. 'You're not too tired?'

'No, not if you are willing to carry on.'

Louise nodded, and played over the pianoforte accompaniment. It was straightforward enough. The first two verses were all but identical; the third modulated to the minor. Eugénie sang, quietly, as Louise played; it was a yearning, wistful melody over the throbbing accompaniment.

'You've looked at this already,' Louise said.

'Yes,' Eugénie said. 'I – Can we sing?'

'Of course.'

Eugénie was right: they had never sung together before, and Louise was hard put to concentrate on the pianoforte and the voice and the German all at once, and then not to notice what the German meant. _Ich wollt', meine Lieb' ergösse sich all' in ein einzig Wort._ I wish my love could speak itself in a single word – and if she were not careful it would. She heard her own voice, light and fragile, over the accompaniment that was like a racing pulse, and, between them, Eugénie, rich with longing – and it would have been so easy to believe that it was Eugénie Danglars and not Felix Mendelssohn who had put that passion in that lower part, and Louise dared not believe that, not with Eugénie standing just behind her right shoulder.

The second verse was torture. The first verse had spoken of winds and breezes, but the second spoke of the beloved, and of a love-filled word. _Du hörst es zu jeder Stunde, du hörst es an jedem Ort._ And Louise tried not to hear it. She threw herself blindly, too fast, into the three bars before the third verse, and found that she could not sing again. Unison. The next bar but one was unison. She let her hands fall from the keyboard and caught the note from Eugénie. And they sang together, unaccompanied. _So wird mein Bild dich verfolgen bis in den tiefsten Traum._ Eugénie's image swam before Louise's eyes, obscuring the music, and a little more of the last verse became unison than Mendelssohn had intended. Still she sang on, suppressing a sob through sheer strength of will: what else could she do?

Eugénie was leaning further and further forward; Louise could feel her breath warm on her ear. She ought to chide her for standing badly, she knew – perhaps she could not see the music well enough. There was nothing but their voices, caressing, twining, echoing. Neither of them was singing well now, but Louise dared neither to stop herself or to correct Eugénie. The song resolved at last, the two voices meeting on the keynote. At last Louise turned to look at her pupil.

Eugénie was pale; her eyes were dry, but she was shaking. Louise had never seen her void of her composure, like this; she put out her right hand as if to support her. Eugénie grasped it, frenziedly, and pressed it to her bosom. Before Louise had time to wonder Eugénie had dropped her hand again, and was kneeling beside her, elbows rested on the edge of the piano stool, strong hands open, and she was looking up at her with pleading eyes.

Louise brought her redundant right hand down to Eugénie's waist in some futile gesture of comfort. Comfort was hardly what she was looking for, after all. Eugénie was breathing fast. '_Cessa, crudel_,' she said, with a hint of her old arrogant humour. Then she put her hand up to Louise's cheek, turned her head to face her, and kissed her, urgently, on the lips. She drew back, looked intently into Louise's eyes for a moment then, apparently satisfied with what she saw there, rose silently and left the room.


	4. Chapter 4

Louise sang for herself, now. And she played, too. The Danglars' town house was rarely without music. Louise's hour-long visits were extended to days, and her day-long visits to weeks. New melodies sprang to life under her fingers and – for she never wrote them down – died as soon as they were born. Eugénie would make her play for her simply for the pleasure of listening, and the lessons stretched to hours. _O! Quante volte! _How many times had she dreamt of such a kiss? No, such kisses, for they multiplied themselves with every lesson. Eugénie built castles in the air, told Louise how she wished that they could live together like true bohemians, devoting themselves to music and to each other. Louise need not go on the stage, and they could be seen around Paris together. Eugénie would go on the stage. Why not? They could run away together.

Louise tried not to believe that it was possible, tried to keep herself from falling deeper in love with every passing day and, when that failed, tried not to notice, and tried not to think about how it must end. She taught Eugénie _Deh! Tu, bell'anima_, and did not try to make her sing it more sadly. _I Capuletti ed I Montechetti_ served to remind them of the likely consequences of a forbidden love, but somehow, neither cared.

Still, how many times? How many kisses? How many glances from flashing dark eyes? How many accompaniments played with only one hand, while the other held Eugénie's? How many duets? How many tendrils of black hair escaping from a careful coiffure? How often did Eugénie slouch deliberately, that she might be scolded by Louise?

'Honestly, Eugénie,' she would say, 'you're no better than a fourteen year old boy.'

And Eugénie would smile like Puck and make Louise leave the pianoforte and mould her spine into the correct posture, and then, when she had her within reach, capture her in strong white arms and kiss her over and over.


End file.
